8. Open Doors

Open Doors is a workplace based project run by East Sussex County Council and supported by Skills East Sussex. School pupils across East Sussex, including Hastings, are given the unique chance to visit workplaces and hear from employers like you about the range of jobs that you offer, and the career paths into them.

This gives our pupils essential knowledge and experience to shape their own futures and provides employers with the opportunity to engage with young people who could form their future workforce. Businesses have offered apprenticeships, work experience placements, and built relationships with local schools.

We would like to invite you to participate in this innovative programme.

Last November, over 500 students visited 44 businesses, from Brighton to Dungeness, learning about a diverse range of East Sussex based jobs in web design, event management, engineering, construction, care, hospitality and many more.

Students’ feedback was very positive, with all participants saying that they had learnt about new roles, and that the experience would help inform their future learning and career decisions. Some employers even identified members of their future workforce from the visits with one company signing up two visiting students as future apprentices!

Visits are completely in your hands. They run during school hours, but you can pick which days, times, and how many students you and your team would like to host. The visit only has to take up an hour of your day, although some companies set aside a day or a week and host multiple visits.

Visits are due to start from November 4th to the 29th, and we would like to invite more businesses to open their doors to young people from across East Sussex.

If you are interested in opening your doors to young people in order to shape their futures, or would like to know more, please reply to OpenDoors@eastsussex.gov.uk or call Kimberley Bulgin on 01273 335625.